Notre Dame moves to 2-0 on the young season while Western
Michigan drops to 0-2. WMU has yet to score a goal this year. The Broncos' 10 penalties resulted in 20
penalty minutes for WMU. They were able to
kill off nine of the power plays but could not mount any offense while being
shorthanded.

"Whenever you have to kill that many penalties guys start to
wear down a little bit," Broncos captain Chase Balisy said.

The first period did not feature any goals but there was
plenty of action as the teams got more and more physical with each other as the
period went on.

With 15:35 left in the first WMU's 5-foot-11-inch 180-pound Balisy and Notre Dame's 6-foot-4 inch 233-pound Stephen Johns got into a
small scuffle that opened the floodgates for a penalty-filled period.

About eight minutes into the period three penalties were
called within the span of11 seconds. Two of them were on WMU and one on was Notre Dame which gave the Fighting Irish a
four-on-three power play for almost two minutes. The Broncos were able to kill off that power
play from the Fighting Irish but two more penalties in the period gave Notre Dame two more power play opportunities.
Luckily for Western no goals came from them and the score was 0-0 going
into the first intermission.

WMU goaltender Frank Slubowski got tangled up with a Notre Dame player behind
his net and lost his stick about four minutes into the second period. Notre Dame's Shayne Taker had a chance to score right
in front of the handicapped Slubowski, but lost control of the puck and could
not get a shot off. He was able to
regain control of the puck however and got it to Thomas DiPauli who put it past
Slubowski to open up the scoring.

WMU had a chance to tie the score with less than 12 minutes
in the period when Kenney Morrison stopped Notre Dame from clearing the puck
out of their end by grabbing it out of midair.
He placed it on the ice and took a huge slap shot that rang of the left
goal post.

Later in the second period WMU was forced into killing off a
four-minute Notre Dame power play after Morrison was called for two separate
minor penalties; one for roughing and one for elbowing. Notre Dame was unable to convert on the opportunity
and the score remained 1-0 in favor of the Fighting Irish going into the second
intermission.

Notre Dame made it a 2-0 game in the first minute of the
third period when Taker fired a slap shot past Slubowski. The goal, which was assisted by Peter
Schneider and T.J. Tynan, came while WMU was once again shorthanded. The Fighting Irish added an empty-net goal
with 1:20 left in the game and went on to shut out the Broncos for the second time in
as many evenings.

"They're a good team," WMU coach Andy Murray said about
taking 10 penalties. "They play fast and
there were times when we didn't move our feet.
We got our stick on them or our hand on them. We can't take that many penalties."

WMU will travel to Alaska next weekend for a Friday night
game against Alaska Anchorage and a Saturday night game against Alaska
Fairbanks. Notre Dame returns home next
weekend for Friday and Sunday games against Michigan Tech.

Aaron Fishell covers general assignment stories for the Kalamazoo
Gazette. Email him at afishell@mlive.com
and follow him on Twitter